It's just a matter of time
by AliceAo
Summary: All the signs were wrong, but one message set the story straight. *tear*


It's just a matter of time AliceA Summary:

All the signs were wrong, but one message set the story straight. *tear*

Notes:

Hello again  
Another story in less than 24 hours.  
College assignments or Fanfiction?  
Duh!

criticism appreciated  
Thanks for all the love  
:D

Work Text:

"No! No way! Not a chance! I will not… be a part of this… farce!" John exclaimed as he barged in through the hall door and climbed the creaking staircase two steps at a time, ignoring the searing pain in his injured leg but wincing all the same.

Sherlock follow his flatmate and slammed the door behind him. The heavy thud of the knocker rattled against the doorframe as it bounced on its hinges. Sherlock stood and looked up the stairwell to the landing, where the light of the inside corner lamp flooded through the space and stretched across the carpeted floor, bathing the area in warm, comforting shades of orange and red. John had disappeared into the flat before Sherlock could explain himself.

The younger man hung his head solemnly and huffed a deep sigh between his lips, causing them to smack playfully against each other and make small, horse-like sounds. He would have chuckled had he the heart to. Hours previously, he could have laughed for days on end. What had left Sherlock feeling worse was that there was nothing he could do to take his words back. He wished he could just delete the cold stare of his usually composed flatmate from his mind palace. But he couldn't. He couldn't just pretend it never happened. He couldn't just carry on as though it were another winter's day. He opened his eyes and looked down at his long bony hands, now purple from the cold dabbled with blotched of orange and pink. The scars from uncontrolled experiments and makeshift weapons were etched into the delicate creases of his skin. They were shaking, hard.

One, two, three, droplets of water landed on the upward facing palms and each raced towards his wrist bones, following the network of now-visible veins and capillaries.

Sherlock was crying.

He hadn't cried in years, not out of pain, when he cracked his femur jumping from the second story of an apartment block onto what he thought were secure dumpsters, nor out of happiness, when he saw Anderson screaming at an unimpressed traffic warden slipping a small yellow sheet of paper under the wiper of Anderson's windshield. But today, on this bleak mid-winter London evening, Sherlock Holmes cried from a broken heart.

Noiseless whimpers escaped him. He cried silently least his flatmate would catch him. The tears were hot on his face and his eyes blurred from the liquid build up between his weary lids. He could feel the lack of oxygen from his breathless heaving causing a lightness between his ears and he reached back gracelessly for the door. His back collided with the wood and he slide towards the floor in jolts as the fine fabric of his coat caught on the corners of the frame. His rear crashed onto the floor and there should have been pain in the collision, but his mind was too far from the primitive demands of his body. He brought his open palms up to his face and rested his eye sockets against the base of his hands with fingers curled upwards in utter dejection. His body convulsed as each wave of hurt rolled up along his spine and broke from his gaping mouth.

"…this… farce" John tore open to door to their flat and he began to pace back and forth from the fireplace to the long leather couch avoiding the coffee table cluttered with sheets of paper, preserving jars and size 12 footprints from Sherlock's slippers. His hands reached and tugged at his short blonde hair.

"Urgh!" he growled, eyes closed and teeth set firmly. His mind was racing out of control. The thoughts swirling around in his mind, like a twister crashing through Kansas farmlands, devouring everything in its path.

"How could he do this to me" the older man thought to himself as he kicked a small spherical object across the room and somewhere in the back of his conscious state he hoped it wasn't something important belonging to flatmate. Four years they have been living together and not once did he tell think of telling John what was going on. One sign, one single sign would have been enough! A lingering glance, the slight touch on the shoulders as the detective strode past the doctor for morning tea.

Tears welled in his eyes but he blinked them away, he would not let Sherlock see him crying like a child. He took a deep breath through his nose and shuck his head back and forth, preparing himself for the emotional marathon he was about to partake in. Only then did he realise it, he never heard the sound of Sherlock's footsteps up the stairs following him. John finally opened his eyes properly and surveyed the room. As he had predicted it was empty. But where did Sherlock go then? He had been just there two minutes ago.

"He probable sodded off in a strop, the arrogant bugger!" John scowled but before he knew it, he felt his feet moving in autopilot and was only slightly aware that he was walking back towards the staircase. He stood in the darkened hallway and scanned for signs of life. It was only then that he heard something. Something small. And weak. Like the coo of an owl from a distance in an overgrown dark forest. He heard it again. Soft shifts of weight, barely audible over the sound of his thumping heart.

He turned towards the door, eyes narrowing slightly before the weight of the realisation crashed down on him like ice. His heart sank into the deepest pit of his stomach when he saw the seated form of his flatmate, his friend, on the floor of the hall, weeping forlornly into his open palms. The man's body was convulsing from shock and his fingers were shaking. The tears John had been trying to hold back breached their barricades and they poured freely down his heated cheeks. The lines on his forehead deepened and his mouth arched into a shameful frown.

He leaned forward on his right foot gingerly, hoping not to disturb the distraught man on the floor. The floorboard underneath the carpet creaked much to John's horror and the weeping men froze in the dark. While John could not see all of Sherlock's face clearly, he knew that his eyes were glassy with moisture. They stared at one another for a full 60 seconds before John cleared his throat.

"Sherlock, I-" He stuttered before continuing. "-I am so sorry." His voice grew quiet towards the end, sheepish nearly.  
The younger man reached forward to propel himself upwards and succeeded in doing so, wobbling slightly, like brittle leaf clinging onto the stub of a branch, desperate to stay grounded.

Sherlock cleared his throat, "Mmmnnnits ok Johnn" he muttered, trying unsuccessfully to conceal the emotion in his voice.  
John made his way slowly down the stairs, descending one step at a time, while Sherlock ascended the staircase mimicking his friend's movements. Step by step they grew closer together until they were face to face, John's smaller frame finally able to look into the eyes of the consulting detectives. They were vividly red and stretched from distress. John felt the urge to break the contact at their intensity but fought against it.

"How-" John started, "-was I supposed to know? You don't tell me anything. I'm not the master deducer you are." His voice broke and a tear glided down his face. A long slender finger caught the tear and reached up to cup John's right cheek gently.

"How-" Sherlock sighed, "-could it have been anyone else?" His lips quivered and John instinctively reached for Sherlock's long hollowed cheek and grazed the pad of his thumb over his cheekbone with his left hand.

"I… I lo-" was all Sherlock managed to spill out before his lips were caught in John's. They stood in the dark hallway for what seemed like hours locked in each other's lips. John's other hand wrapped itself around the other man's shoulders and he drew the two men closer together, never breaking the kiss. They could feel each other's tears glide down and pool between their pressed cheeks.

The break was unbearable but necessary as they both drew back for air, millimetres from their previous position. John wrapped his lips once more around Sherlock's and held them tenderly for a few seconds and then let go again.

"You are so thick, John" were the words Sherlock broke the silence with. John snorted and sighed. What else was he expecting this incredible man to say?

"Thanks, smart arse." John removed his hands from Sherlock's shoulder and moved it up to his other cheek.

"I gave you all the signs I could, I figured even you would be able to catch on, given the substantial amount of small presents lying around the apartment with your name on them." Sherlock chuckled, with only a mild air of condescension. John stopped and pondered, before it hit him.

"You! You lefts small parcels with dead insects sitting on decaying pieces of meat all over the flat! How was I possibly meant to know what they were meant to mean?" John laughed but not too frivolously, he was still annoyed by the horrid smell in the flat that no amount of air freshener or scented candles had been able to mask. Sherlock's now only slightly red eyes looked confusedly at the doctor still in his hands embrace.

"Did you not like them? It took me weeks to collect an adequate amount to portray how much you mean to me." Rather than trying to figure out the connection between decaying insects and meat and personal intimacy, John just smiled and placed another quick peck on his friend's lips.

"Thank you, for everything. But in the future, we'll have a little chat about how to express your emotions to other people more... appropriately." A quick flash of letters crossed his mind has he remembered the text message he had received off Sherlock which has started this whole thing, standing not two feet away from him over a particularly grizzly crime scene, less than an hour ago. :

"I think it is time I told you.  
It has been distracting me for some time now  
John Hamish Watson  
I think I love you  
Will you be with me?"  
- SH

John had re-read it twice over before looking at the side profile of Sherlock who was barking profanities at Anderson and Donovan, just before the doctor walked out of the room dumbfounded, heat pooling in his face. "Where are you going? I'm not finished with your experience yet" Sherlock called back to the older man, a hint of mischief in his usually patronizing tone. John shot Sherlock a glare, full of knowing and confusion, before heading out the door and towards the nearest street corner for a taxi, leaving the detective stunted and rattled with dread.

"You impossible man." John smiled, shaking away the memory and taking Sherlock's hand in his own, ascending the stairs towards to warmth of the living room.

"Your impossible man" Sherlock replied, and they both smiled, teary eyed, in the passage of light.


End file.
